The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-10-08
DOWN IN THE VALLEY.
BY Nj. QUAD.

We crept on hands and knees through the tangled underbrush and vines to the edge of the cliff and looked tver We were fifty feet above val ey-a little paradise in which the flowers blossomed, the sweet grass grew knee high, and the ground birds built their nests without fear of an enemy.
 1: Each man of us feasted his eyes in silence. It seemed as if word spoken ! aloud would shatter the picture which Nature had painted solely for herself There was long five minutes be- fore any of us looked straight down, and then we saw sight to make our blood jingle. An Indian warrior, evidently shot through the hips and his lower limbs paralyzed, had dragged himself along the base of cliff to a spring just under our faces We looked to tue right and followed his trail to where a point of thicket ran into the valley. He had come inch by inch, leaving his life-blood to crimson the white faced flowers and dye the grass dull red.
 "Sh! :"
 We bend over to note the last few feet of his progress. He is a repre- sentative warrior-tall, strong and full of such courage as Nature gives only to her children of the mountain and prairie. He draws himself along as if he were log. Every movement must cost him terrible pain, but even here, alone as he believes himself, he will not cry out.
 He reaches the water and laps it ike dog. It seems as if he could never drink enough. He has been hours crawling this half mile, and all the time horrible fever has been >corching every vein and parching his tongue.
 He finally turns from the water, pulls himself about with a heroic effort, and now he rests on his side and faces the valley. It is as if he felt his last moment approaching, and meant to die with his face to the beau- ti1ll picture. He must have been armed, but in that terrible struggle to reach the spring he has frightened him. self ot everything which could make the journey last second longer.
 Cry out and encourage him? Seek place and descend and succor him? He is an Apache. Let that be an excuse for making no movement. He was born to hate the white man. Such a feeling as gratitude never entered his heart. In his dying hour he would say the man who bent over him with water to quench his fever Implaca- ble-bloodthirsty to the last-heart- less and cruel by nature and cultiva- ton-leave him to die as he lived. Were the film of death already cover ing his orbs hc would concentrate his last strength into one yell of alarm to bring his fellows upon us.
 Look!
 The great cat of the mountains-the puma of South America, the panther of the deep wilderness of the north has crept out of the thicket and is sniffing at the bloody trail. The soft breeze bore the scent to her lair as she slept, and she awoke to show her yell low fangs and lick her blood red lips. Never had she sniffed at such trail. Never did drops of blood lead so surely to victim.
 An! Her tongue has licked the blood from the daisies, and she arches her back, shoots fire from her eyes and tears at the grass with her long claws. Ten drops of human blood have aroused all her ferocity. Her long tail sweeps the ground, her lips fall away from the cruel fangs, and she crouches down to follow the bloody trail. The lion or tiger would have taken it with rush. The great cat worms herself along like snake. The trail is zigzag. She follows every cur-c.
 We can see her, even to the fash of her eyes-the working of her muscles, the quiver of impatience that runs through her now and then. She must pass around large rock which has fallen from the cliff into the valley be- fore she can see her victim, or before the warrior can see her.
 Three white men with hearts which know pity-threc rifles which carry to the death. Shall we shoot?
 No! The sound of rife might bring a score of Apache devils hunt ing for us. The cat might lay dead before their eyes the wounded war rior might owe us his life, but we should go to the stake for all that-to the torture by fire and knife and toma- hawk. They could not forgive us for being white men.
 Ugh! The cat halts now and then to lick at a larger spot of blood-a place where the warrior, overcome by